Dancing the horah at the 2009 wedding of Andrew Shulman and Jeremy Hooper of goodasyou.org

There are about 7 million Jews living in the United States and about 4.3 million are religious to some extent. Unlike Christianity with it gazillion different variations and denominations, Judaism basically falls into a handful of camps:

38% Reform

33% Conservative

22% Orthodox

2% Reconstructionist

5% Et Cetera

For several years Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have been active supporters of marriage equality and have permitted and supported same-sex marriages. And now we welcome a new participant and ally: (Fox News)

The Conservative branch of American Judaism has formally approved same-sex marriage ceremonies, nearly six years after lifting a ban on ordaining gays and lesbians.

The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards issued the ruling Thursday on a 13-0 vote with one abstention, said Rabbi Elliot Dorff, the committee chairman. The panel of scholars approved two model wedding ceremonies and guidelines for a same-sex divorce. Rabbis can adapt the marriage ceremonies for the couples.

There are some distinctions between the new “Covenant of Loving Partners” and more traditional heterosexual marriages but the rabbis declare it to be “a Jewish wedding” nevertheless.

From 40 to @73% official support.
Judaism, in the main, can said to be religiously in support of marriage equality. Why is the GOP hindering the religious free exercise of the Jewish faith? Why are the discriminating against marriages performed in accordance with the Jewish faith?

I’d never even heard of Reconstructionist Judaism until I went to my first bar’mitzvah at the age of 33 (I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood until I was 12 – guess how PISSED I was to miss all the parties when we moved…)

I was like “OK finally this’ll be interesting”

And then people are wearing tie-dye tallits and they’re talking about all sorts of crazy lib’rul stuff.

Coincidentally, it was the day of the vote on DADT and Carl Levin was related to some of the folks there and the rabbi made a few comments about why he couldn’t be there because he had some VERY important work to do.

For someone who is generally not into religion, I gotta say, the Reconstruction synagogue in Rockville is awesome.

What many non-Jews fail to understand is that the Torah, is only the beginning of Jewish law, that there the Talmud, Halacha and one other part (I can see my rabbi shaking his head, this is the problem with only being part Jewish) and NOTHING is really set in stone, all of the rabbinical schools teach a method called “pilpul” which means pepper. The point of pilpul is to take a single phrase or word and see if you can find a new way of interpreting it. This is how the elaborate Kosher laws came about. Take a few chapters in Leviticus and Numbers, add some Talmud, a few grinds of pepper and you’ve got separate dishes for meat and for dairy.

Some Ultra-Orthiodox Jews go so far as to argue they can engage in anal sex with another man so long as it’s standing up and not lying down.

I tell people I was lost in the suburbs and raised by Jews – it’s nearly though not entirely true, but where I grew up, it was on the order of 30-50% Jewish. My Italian dad hasn’t set foot in a church in 40 years, but he has a prayer shawl and a yarmulke (and yes, I know how to spell yarmulke).

This removes a great disappointment I have felt for many years. Even though my Jewish friends – including the Conservative Jews – have always been supportive, it’s nice to make it official.

That leaves the Orthodox branch as the last remaining major Jewish group that hasn’t accepted marriage equality – but I believe it’s only a matter of time. There are already orthodox rabbis working towards it, and what’s promising is that they tend to be young, so their influence can only grow.

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.